Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s much-anticipated speech before his party group on October 23 was the weeks-long culmination of “must-see TV.”After Turkish officials had drip-fed both real and fabricated leaks to the media and deliberately created a confused and emotionally charged atmosphere, Erdogan had promised to reveal to the world the “naked truth” behind the grisly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.Erdogan’s failure to deliver the promised details prompted The Washington Post to argue that Erdogan appeared “less interested in revealing what really happened to the Saudi journalist than in leveraging the murder for political gain.”READ MORE

WASHINGTON TIMES Clifford May: Killing Khashoggi Eighteen Saudis have now been arrested and five top officials fired in connection with the killing. Bookies will give odds that they are being set up to fall on their swords for MbS. But it’s also possible to imagine that they were involved in an abduction that went sideways, and was followed by a clumsy cover-up that has led to a diplomatic crisis.